


The Scarlet Guard

by kishuku



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020), The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26391730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishuku/pseuds/kishuku
Summary: A crossover of the Old Guard and the Scarlet Pimpernel.Andy, Joe, and Nicky are in Paris during the French Revolution and they cross paths with the infamous Scarlet Pimpernel, a English nobleman who is smuggling French aristocrats out of Paris.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	The Scarlet Guard

**Author's Note:**

> French vocabulary:  
> citoyen/citoyenne= citizen  
> noblesse= nobility  
> ci-devant= former aristocracy
> 
> If you've ever read the Scarlet Pimpernel you'll recognize that the first half of my story is lifted from the book. Personally, I think it was just too clever for me not to borrow.

“How many family members?” Andy asked. She was, as usual, masquerading as a young man, shoulder length hair tied back as was the current fashion. Which was just as well, when she let her hair down it made her look far too feminine.

The tavern was dirty. The floor was a dirt floor, uneven where furniture and feet had gouged out or worn away the hard packed earth. Foul-smelling oil lamps sat on tables or dangled from hooks, adding to the stench of unwashed humanity that passed through the establishment nightly. The smell of cooking food only added nausea to the mix of smells wafting through the air.

“Thirteen and two young children,” the man answered nervously. “They’re all hiding with me and my wife. Everyone’s terrified to go outside. We only send the few servants we have left for food and necessities. We must get out!” his voice rose a little on the last four words, panicking pitching it a little too high and a little too loud.

Andy shushed him with a single look, “Where would you and your family be willing to go? Prussia? England?”

“Yes! Yes! Anywhere, but remain here,” the man whispered. His brown hair was graying at the temples and without any rouge his cheeks were pale with fear and nerves. He was dressed plainly, but his clothes were too clean and too new, his socks were too white.

Andy sighed, “Fifteen people is a large group, _citoyen_. It is a risk if we take all of you at once and it is a risk if we split up, passing back and forth through the gates multiple times means we could get caught. If my men and I are caught where does that leave you and your family?”

“Then find more men!”

She raised an eyebrow at the Duc de Chalis, “Who would you suggest I trust? Men love the Republic more than they do money nowadays.”

“Do not ask me to choose which of my family members lives or dies!” the duke pleaded. Andy could tell that it galled him to beg a young man, a commoner, for aid, but the duke’s distant cousin and his family had just been executed by the guillotine that same day. He was desperate and terrified.

She sighed again, “Two days.”

“My family and I don’t—“

“Two days,” Andy repeated, cutting him off. “Or you find your own passage out of France.”

The Duc de Chalis was quiet, “You make many demands, _citoyen_. I must meet you in person. I cannot take my servants with us. I must pay but you cannot guarantee us our lives.”

Andy waited.

The duke sighed, “Two days. I will await your news.”

Andy nodded and left.

Two men drifted away from their positions on the street, flanking her as she walked. When they reached their hideout, one slipped around to the back entrance, while the other man loitered out front to ensure they hadn’t been followed.

Andy sat down and waited for Nicholas and Joseph to finish their security measures before they joined her.

“Well?” Joseph asked when he sat down next to Andy at the only table in the room. Two straw pallets were rolled up in the corner of the room near a hearth that was completely black from years of use. There was only the table as well as two chairs and a small step stool to serve as furniture.

Nicholas appeared a moment later, latching the backdoor and shoving a crate of glass bottles in front of the door with his foot. A poor man’s burglar alarm.

“Thirteen plus two small children.”

Joseph let out a low whistle as his eyebrows rose, “That’s more than we’ve ever done before, boss.”

“I know.”

“How old are the children?” Nicholas asked as he took the remaining seat on the room, the footstool at Joseph’s feet, an elbow slung over Joseph’s knee.

“I don’t know. Old enough. They’re not babies,” Andy said. “We can’t smuggle that many people out at the same time. Yet we’ll have to.”

“What do you suggest?” Joseph asked.

“I think we need to put an ad out in the papers. Nicholas, get down to the print shop and pay for an ad inquiring after a poor man’s weather-glass. We only have two days, hopefully the gods will smile on us,” Andy tossed a pouch of coins to Nicholas.

“What’s a poor man’s weather-glass? What are we going to need that for?” Joseph asked as Nicholas heaved himself off the floor and this time headed for the front door.

Andy smiled, “It’s the name of a flowering weed. A scarlet pimpernel.”

~~

The ad ran in the morning papers and Andy was waiting in the square near the fountains by late afternoon. She was wearing a dress and apron, nothing too fancy, modest and practical. Something a middle class servant might wear. She also wore several small blue flowers in her hair, they were a bright brilliant azure and had five tiny petals each. In England the flower was considered a common weed and typically bloomed a red color.

The Duc de Chalis would not recognize her if she stood up and denounced him to the Republic in this guise.

Andy glimpsed a young man with perfectly coifed hair sneaking up behind her. He slipped a hand around her waist and murmured in French, “Mademoiselle, those flowers will be the death of me!”

Andy smiled, “Darling!” She gripped the palm of the hand wrapped around her waist and twisted, holding their hands in the folds of her dress to hide her grip from view.

“A hundred apologies, my love! I never meant to startle you,” the young man gasped as Andy bent his thumb back painfully, his French pronunciation slipping as he struggled not to yelp in pain.

Her smiled widened a fraction as she relaxed her grip, “Shall we take a walk then, _citoyen_?” She smoothly folded his grasp into the loop of her arm and guided him away from a crowd of children playing nearby. “Just a quick circle of the square.”

The young man lifted his free hand and straightened his cravat to hide his relief as Andy patted his tortured hand gently, “Sir Andrew, at your service, _citoyenne_.”

“Wonderful, you can address me as _citoyen_ Andrea.”

He laughed, “We make for a good pair, do we not?”

“I suppose we shall see? I have fifteen parcels to ship out overseas from Chalis, thirteen large and two small. What do you propose?” Andy got to the heart of the matter.

“Fifteen? That’s quite a large number,” Sir Andrew murmured.

“Yes, that’s what I told my employer. Tomorrow if possible. I wouldn’t want any of the parcels to be damaged,” Andy passed Joseph, who had appeared in the square that morning to sketch the general humanity that frequented the space. Joseph flicked his eyes to his right, Andy allowed her gaze to wander over that half of the square until she spotted a man pretending to watch the children play.

“Hm. I’ll speak to my comrades about it. You’ll have your answer this evening,” Sir Andrew informed her. He leaned in slowly, cautiously, and gave her two kisses, one on each cheek before taking his leave.

Joseph tried to hide it but Andy saw his smirk.

Andy watched as the other man joined Sir Andrew, slinging an arm around his shoulders. It was good to know their conspirators were also cautious men.

Later that evening, when Andy had changed back into more sensible clothing, they had their answer. Several parcels were delivered by alternating young boys and after unwrapping them there were sixteen French soldier uniforms. A note was pinned to the final package.

_“Citoyenne Andrea,  
Please find with all love and affection a gift for tomorrow. Please be ready to meet by late afternoon at the back gate. We will leave the distribution of the gifts to you.”_

There was no signature, only a red wax seal with a single star shaped flower.

A scarlet pimpernel.

~~

A cheerful man with laughing blue eyes greeted Andy in the back alley behind their lodgings.

“Zooks! Andrew told me you were a handsome young lady, yet here you are! Just as dashing in a French Revolutionary’s uniform! Odd’s fish! Pray tell, are you more man or more woman?” he asked mischievously in French with a slow drawl to his words.

“Does it matter?” Andy asked bluntly. Behind her, inside their cramped lodgings was the Duc de Chalis’s entire family. Joseph and Nicholas were inside calming nerves and distracting the two children.

A seriousness entered the man’s gaze as he appraised Andy in her uniform, her hair tied back in its neat ponytail. “I suppose not, _citoyen_. Let us evaluate humanity by what lies between their ears and in their heart, rather than what is between their legs. Shall we assemble our troops?”

Sir Andrew and three other men appeared behind the man, leading several horses into the tight alley. All were dressed in French uniforms.

Andy nodded, then opened the back door. She kept her eyes on the blue eyed man as she beckoned the Duc de Chalis and his family forth. She and Nicholas would be carrying the two children, hidden behind them and hopefully concealed underneath a heavy cloak. They would ride out to the coast and once there they would turn the Duc de Chalis and his family over to the Scarlet Pimpernel and his league. Andy and Nicholas would return to Paris with Joseph, who would meet them with a cart and change of clothing.

After Andy informed the blue eyed man of their intention to return to Paris he smiled, “Lud! You are a hero after my own heart!”

Once they were all settled, Joseph and Nicholas whispering to each other as Nicholas mounted up, the blue eyed man led them towards the gates, Andy and Nicholas careful to stay in the midst of the other riders. Nerves were running high, one of the wives looked as though she were about to faint or maybe it was simply the lack of rouge on her cheeks. Andy prayed she’d maintain herself until they’d reached safety. Joseph and Nicholas had already repeated the seriousness of the situation to every adult while they changed into uniforms and waited for the Pimpernel’s arrival. Past the other riders Andy saw a man on foot approach the lead rider, he leaned down to speak with him briefly, then nudged his horse to a quick trot.

Andy saw Sergeant Grospierre examining carts and riders as they passed, the infamous guardian of the gate who had already sent so many to their deaths.

But the blue eyed man approached him confidently, “Has a cart gone through?”

“Yes,” says Grospierre, “not half an hour ago.”

“And you have let them escape,” the blue eyed man roared at him. “You’ll go to the guillotine for this, _citoyen_ sergeant! That cart held concealed the _ci-devant_ Duc de Chalis and all his family!” His horse danced nervously beneath him as though it shared the man’s dramatic rage.

“What?” gasped Grospierre, paling in fear.

“Aye! And the driver was none other than that cursed Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel!” The blue eyed man twisted around on his horse, “After them, my men,” he shouted, “remember the reward; after them, they cannot have gone far!”

The entire group thundered through the gates, mud flicked up by the hooves of their horses.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the gates, Nicholas let out a peal of laughter and Andy couldn’t help but match his joy with a smile.

A matching smile flashed from beneath Sir Andrew’s hat, “Let’s ride for the coast. We can celebrate with a bit of French brandy.”

~~

“It was genius! Oh, Joseph, I wish you had been there!” Nicholas had just finished telling the story of their escapade at the Parisian gates. “And not a drop of blood was shed!” He sat up front with Joseph.

“I imagine that’ll happen tomorrow. Grospierre will most definitely be punished for his mistake,” Andy joined in. She lounged in the empty flat bed of the cart leaning back against their bundle of possessions, once again wearing non-descript men’s clothing.

Joseph had packed up what little they had. He’d rolled their clothing into bundles he shoved into a canvas sack along with the extra French uniform, which went on the bottom. Before departing their temporary lodgings he’d left the back door open a crack, as though a careless tenant had forgotten to close it. Hopefully looters or squatters would notice the half closed door and move in, erasing their tracks.

He’d borrowed the cart and donkey from an old rabbi in the Jewish quarter. They’d prevented a group of drunks from looting the synagogue last year and the rabbi never asked any questions when Joseph asked to borrow the cart and donkey.

“Andy, how did you know _he_ would respond?” Joseph asked, he wore a set of black robes and a broad brimmed hat, commonly worn by Jewish men.

She shrugged, even though she knew neither of them could see it, “I didn’t. I wasn’t even certain he was in Paris.”

“What if he hadn’t? Responded. What would we’ve done then?” Nicholas asked, twisting around in his seat.

“I had some ideas—none as good as the one today—but we would’ve tried,” Andy tucked an arm behind her head. “I couldn’t let those two children face the guillotine.”

Several children of aristocrats and royalists had been guillotined, others had been imprisoned in the Temple, a medieval fortress in Paris built by the Knights Templar in the 13th century. Children who were old enough to declare their name and title were sometimes executed despite their young age. Those children who were imprisoned often sickened and died behind locked doors.

The three of them had made a single venture to snatch children from the Temple. It had almost ended in disaster. The fortress had changed so much since the last time any of them had been inside they’d gotten lost in the twisting halls and only just managed to escape with three very young children. The children’s parents were all dead, victims of Madame Guillotine, but Andy had noted a caravan of Romani encamped outside Paris. They’d passed through the gates simply because the alarm hadn’t gone out about the missing children yet and no one looked at the children with suspicion. Andy had spoken with the Romani, who’d taken the children and promptly decamped and disappeared.

“Do you suppose the looters will have tossed the Duc de Chalis’s manor by the time we get back in Paris?” Nicholas mused.

“At the rate this poor fellow’s moving we’ll be lucky to get back inside the walls before nightfall,” Joseph flicked the crop at the donkey, who ignored him and continued its steady plodding.

At last they arrived at the farm of the man who they bought hay from. Andy hopped out and for a moment all four of them quietly filled the back of the cart with hay.

The man—his name was Gaspard if Andy remembered correctly—suddenly spoke up, “I know what you are really doing.” He was nervous and terrified.

The three of them exchanged glances then Andy spoke, “Are you blackmailing us, _citoyen_?”

The farmer desperately shook his head, “Yes. No! I need your help. My wife’s niece. She’s….”

“Calm down,” Nicholas moved forward and carefully eased the man until he was sitting on back of the cart. “Does she have a name?”

“Eugenia,” he gulped for air a few times. “Eugenia Faucheux. She works…. Worked as a lady’s maid for the Comte de Vaudreuil’s relations.

Vaudreuil had fled from Versailles for the Austrian Netherlands after the storming of the Bastille. He had been attempting to raise an army to fight the revolutionaries and Robespierre had offered a handsome reward for his capture and return to Paris for justice. Count Vaudreuil had abandoned several family members to their fates, but a common servant girl should’ve been spared by the revolutionaries.

“Is she in the city?” Andy asked.

“She’s been hiding the Comte de Vaudreuil’s nephew, Jacques-Francois, since the count fled Paris and abandoned his family. My wife and I thought Eugenia had been swept up by the revolution and refused to depart Paris,” Gaspard blurted out in a rush. “We tried to tell her to leave him and return home, but we haven’t heard any news since.”

“If she’s helping an aristos during the revolution she’s no longer a child,” Andy observed. “And if she is, what is to us?”

“I want you to bring her back here! If she’s helping the aristos she must stop and come home! And if she isn’t…. If she isn’t, the revolution isn’t the place for a child,” Gaspard muttered. “I have no money. The only thing I can offer you is my silence.”

Andy stared at the man for a long moment, “Silence about what?”

“That you…. That you are the Scarlet Pimpernel!” Gaspard whispered.

Andy burst into laughter. She laughed long enough that Gaspard began looking back and forth between Joseph and Nicholas as though he were witnessing a madman’s breakdown.

After wiping away the tears in her eyes, Andy clapped Gaspard on the shoulder, “Let’s talk about your wayward niece, _citoyen_.”

~~

“How are we supposed to find one girl in all of Paris?” Joseph wanted to know. “Put out another ad?”

“The Duc de Chalis’s old servants are still in Paris, some of them at least. The older ones are royalists. They may recognize servants from other households. I’ll contact them,” Andy said.

Their new lodgings were considerably better than the previous one. The _noblesse_ of France were in flight and their homes were open to the taking and many squatted in the sumptuous houses and manors. This left some modest rooms with beds available for rent so the average _citoyen_ didn’t have to live in squalor, although many still chose to simply because it was the only home they’d known.

Just last week the news was that the Scarlet Pimpernel had once again deceived the guards at the gate with his disguise and spirited away the _ci-devant_ Comtesse Tournay and two of her children. He had the devil’s own luck. Andy smiled at the thought of the tall blue eyed man dressed as an old hag threatening to bring the curse of the pox on the gate guards. Heads would roll.

“We’ve found them,” Nicholas told Andy one afternoon. “The nephew is hiding in the attic above an in inn near Rue Montemartre.”

“And we may have an additional problem,” Joseph added as he dropped into a chair. “Eugenia—if the woman we saw is the farmer’s niece—may be with child.”

“Jacques-Francois’s?” Andy asked.

Joseph shrugged.

“Do you think they’re trying to escape?”

“All the _noblesse_ are trying to escape Paris and the embrace of Madame Guillotine,” Joseph said. “If Eugenia is with child then she may also be at risk.”

Andy nodded, “I’ll go talk to her.” She sighed, “Hand me the dress.”

~~

The young woman was definitely beginning to show the first signs of pregnancy. Andy could see why she’d been a lady’s maid, her hands were delicate and her face doll-like, yet her brown hair and brown eyes wouldn’t have been able to compete with a lady in all her finery. Her dress and apron were too thin to hide her expanding waistline. Andy had been observing her as she wandered through the market, the young woman’s fist gripped tightly around the remaining coins in her hand. Her basket was still woefully empty, holding only a few small apples and a loaf of bread. Andy watched her buy a few eggs with her remaining coin.

Eugenia turned towards the Rue Montemartre. She hurried. Clearly, she didn’t want to be in the streets when the morning mob of people began moving towards the Place de le Concorde to watch the daily executions.

Andy hesitated. She wasn’t used to approaching others to offer her services, during the revolution all those she’d saved had come to her.

“Eugenia?” she called after the woman.

The young woman whirled around, a tiny bit of panic in her eyes, “Pardon?”

“Eugenia! I thought it was you. How’s Francois?” Andy asked as she linked her arm with the young woman’s free arm. “How long has it been since you’ve visited your uncle? But I suppose farm life is so dull compared to the revolution!”

“M-my uncle? Are they…. Are they well?” Eugenia choked out, sudden tears in her voice.

“Oh, they’re fine. They’re very worried about you. In fact, they asked me to see how you were doing and maybe see if you’d like to visit them someday?” Andy asked as they walked.

“Oh! Oh,” Eugenia’s hand dropped to her abdomen. “I—I couldn’t. Things are so… uncertain.” She suddenly ground to a halt, her feet scuffling to a stop, as though suddenly realizing she’d been slowly leading Andy towards their hideout. “You—Thank you for conveying my uncle and aunt’s message. You must be very busy.”

Andy sighed and patted her hand, “Well, why don’t you talk it over with Francois? I could help arrange a trip for you to visit your family farm or we could go anywhere you’d like! Do let me know. I’ll be at market tomorrow morning as well.”

Then with a quick kiss to each cheek, Andy left the confused young woman only one street away from her lodgings, and walked briskly towards the Place de la Concorde.

When Andy returned that evening she was emotionally exhausted. She’d stood on the edge of the square all afternoon reminding herself why they were there. Part of her wanted to pick up a blade and cut through the hordes of screaming individuals reveling in the death of their fellow man. It would’ve been simpler. Easier.

And just as senseless as many of the deaths she witnessed on the platform in the center of the square. 

~~

By evening, when Andy returned with bread, cheese, sausage, and a few small apples Joseph and Nicholas lurched to their feet when she entered the room. Whatever the news was, it wasn’t good.

“This came for you,” Nicholas handed a small scrap of paper to Andy as Joseph took her basket of food from her.

_“Citoyenne Andrea,_  
Sometime ago you felt the need to call upon me for assistance. Now I must humbly beg the favor be returned. It is imperative that two associates of mine in Paris be in Calais by tomorrow evening. I do not command you and your men’s loyalty so I cannot demand that you obey me, so I must repeat that I can only humbly beg that you assist me in this matter.  
May every person be judged by what they choose to do with the time they’re given and what is in their heart.” 

As usual there was no signature, just a simple red flower.

“Where’s the messenger?” Andy asked.

Joseph jerked his chin towards the window, “He said he would wait out back.”

“Can you see him from there?” Andy asked.

Joseph nodded.

“Tell him to come up.”

Joseph waved to the man outside on the street and a few minutes later there was knock at the door.

“Armand St. Just,” the young man greeted them, “at your service.”

Andy lifted an eyebrow at that, “No, _citoyen_. It seems that we are in your service. But before that, we have many things to discuss.”

~~

The original plans of this expedition was for Armand St. Just and the Comte de Tournay were to have met the Pimpernel along with two emissaries at a location vaguely alluded to as ‘Pere Blanchard’s hut’. The plans had been intercepted and all had gone awry, the two emissaries disappeared, leaving the two Frenchmen stranded in Paris.

Andy wanted Armand and the Comte to agree to take Eugenia and Jacques-Francois with them. She was certain the girl would come find her in the morning market, so they would leave late in the afternoon after the executions. Armand wanted to depart in the morning when most of the traffic was headed into the city. Andy rejected the idea, saying that by being one of the few departing groups they would attract far more attention and examination from the gate guards. Two sergeants had already lost their heads due to the antics of the Scarlet Pimpernel, no man wanted to be next.

Now all seven of them were gathered in their tiny room. Just as Andy had predicted Eugenia had been at the morning market with a bearded man escorting her. It was a better disguise for Jacques-Francois than Andy had expected, so many French aristocrats refused to give up their sumptuous clothing and wigs, or even make any attempt to look like a French commoner. The Comte de Tournay was just one such example, still wearing his silks and wig. He clearly yet to grasp the gravity of his situation.

Armand and Andy discussed escape options. The original plan had relied on supplies provided by the two vanished emissaries. Joseph suggested dressing as Jews escorting and joining a funeral procession was rejected. The old rabbi would’ve been willing to help and Jews were still not permitted to be interred within the walls of Paris, so here were weekly funeral processions escorting the dead. However, the Comte de Tournay had rejected it, roundly stating that he would never deign to pose as a member of that ‘wandering race’.

Andy supposed the count simply didn’t see the irony in his own situation as he prepared to flee the land of his birth.

They were currently discussing the third and possibly last option.

“You can’t possibly demand that Eugenia in her condition go…. Go down there!” Jacques-Francois was protesting.

Andy rubbed the headache that was beginning to form between her eyes.

“But darling! Every moment you stay in Paris is a moment more that I live in terror!” Eugenia clutched at the young man’s arm, eyes pleading. “And we have no more money, soon no lodgings, and you cannot work for fear of discovery! Would you have us raise our child on the streets of the revolution?”

The two lovers exchanged a long look, her eyes begging and his mouth twisted in pride.

“Well, I cannot imagine—“ the count began.

“Then stay!” Andy snapped. She was so tired of the _noblesse’s_ prickly sensitivities. “Stay and die. You will leave your wife with no husband and your child with no father, abandoning them on foreign soil because of your pride!”

The Comte de Tournay sputtered. No one in all his years had spoken to him this way, “I am the Comte de—“

Andy smiled and it wasn’t a kind one, “In the new Republic we are equals, Comte de Tournay. Your title means nothing without money or lands or power. I am telling the truth, the ugly truth all you aristocrats ignored for decades is here. The truth is in the square where your peers die by the handful every day. The truth is in the face of the starving child lying in the gutter you stepped over every single day for your entire life. That child is here to devour you and your kind and its hunger knows no bounds. So I am telling you the truth. If you stay, squander this moment this Englishman holds out to you, then surely as the sun will rise tomorrow. You. Will. Die. Here.”

Armand revealed a small smile, he was the only one of the French who seemed pleased by Andy’s tirade.

Nicholas, on the other hand, was smiling out right and added, “Ah, the boss is a fighter, not much of an ambassador. But all of you need to decide now. We don’t have time for more arguing.”

A few moments later Jacques-Francois lifted his gaze from Eugenia’s face and nodded to Andy. The Comte de Tournay silently nodded as well, his gaze fixed on his hands.

“Then Nicholas, you go with Armand to buy supplies and clothes. Joseph, go speak with the rabbi,” Andy knew she’d have to be the one to stay with the other three. In case, they began contriving escape plans on their own and risking all of their necks.

A few hours later, Nicholas and Armand returned with clothing for Eugenia and the Comte de Tournay, as well as cavalry boots for all six of them. Even the smallest set were too large for Eugenia, so they stuffed rags into the toes, her gait was still awkward, but hopefully they wouldn’t be on the streets long enough for anyone to notice.

Then the six of them trooped a quiet street and Nicholas lifted the heavy metal grate covering the entrance to the sewers that ran beneath Paris.

~~

Andy took the lead, just in case they ran into looters or other criminals head first. Armand followed behind her, then Jacques-Francois with Eugenia dressed in men’s clothing, the count with a delicately laced and perfumed handkerchief pressed over his face, and finally Nicholas brought up the rear of their little group. The sewers beneath Paris had been nearly 400 years ago and all currently existing tunnels flowed out into the Seine, a few tunnels in particular emptied into the Seine beyond the walls of the city.

Andy lifted the foul-smelling oil lamp and squinted at the map Joseph had drawn for her, he’d copied as much of the sewer system from Paris’s historical library as he could. Several tunnels were large enough a small army could’ve marched 6 men abreast through, but some of the ones they turned down were only wide enough for one man at a time. Thankfully, there hadn’t been a rain storm in recent days so the water level was low, only an inch or two above their ankles, but the rain might’ve improved the smell. Occasionally something bumped against their ankles and calves as the flowing current carried its dirty treasures towards freedom. The cavalry boots ended just beneath their knees, above the knee in Eugenia’s case, and protected them from what was in the water and from the rats. The little rodents were fearless, as if they knew the humans had entered their territory, watching them pass from their little niches and hidey-holes.

It was the count who’d shrieked when his oil lamp had picked out the scurrying motions of the wet furry bodies. Eugenia had given the man such a withering look he’d been silent since.

The entire escape was foul-smelling, fear-inducing as hundreds of tiny bright eyes watched them from the darkness, however it was uneventful. Andy heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the soft murmur of the Seine up ahead.

They walked along the embankment until they were unable to scramble up the side of the river one at a time.

Joseph, dressed in black robes with the broad brimmed hat, with the donkey and cart was waiting for them with a change of clothing and shoes. “Boss, did you miss me?” he quipped.

Andy smiled, “You know I did.”

“You lucky bastard, you always miss the best parts of these little adventures,” Nicholas laughed as he shucked off his boots and started changing.

Andy ducked behind the cart to change into another set of pants and shirt, emerging a moment later and motioning that Eugenia should do the same. Jacques-Francois had finished and took up a protective position as she changed into a dress. The soiled clothing they tied into small bundles and tossed each one into the swiftly moving river, the boots also went into the water one at a time.

“Now, let’s get all of you to Calais,” Andy walked alongside the cart. Eugenia and the count were seated in the back of the cart as they set off.

~~

Several hours later Andy, Joseph, and Nicholas stood on the shore and watched the yacht _The DayDream_ sail away from France. There had been a few additional complications after they’d arrived in Calais. Apparently the famed inspector Chauvelin had been in pursuit of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the famous actress Marguerite St. Just—his wife!—had also pursued the man across the Channel in a tangled web of miscommunication and good intentions.

“He is a very busy gentleman,” Nicholas had murmured after Lord Blakeney had laughingly told them the entire story while they’d waited for The DayDream. Armand, along with the three other fugitives had been picked up by the yacht an hour or so ago. Now the ship was sailing around to come collect Lord and Lady Blakeney, as well as the cheerful Sir Andrew.

“He is, but he makes it look easy,” Andy laughed. She’d turned down Blakeney’s offer to join his league or sail to England with them. It was too soon for her to want to return to those islands.

Now they had an additional cart with an old nag of a horse, as well as another set of black robes and hat complete with a wig. Andy had said she would drive the horse and cart to Calais and return them to Reuben Goldstein before the three of them returned to Paris. They would also go to the farmer Gaspard’s home and inform him that his wife’s niece was safe with a man whom loved her enough to give up his name. Jacques-Francois had offered to take Eugenia’s surname, Faucheux, when Lord Blakeney offered to provide the two young lovers with a marriage certificate. Eugenia’s name provided the anonymity he wanted as a French royal in exile.

“Back to Paris, boss?” Joseph asked as they readied the poor exhausted donkey and horse.

“A few detours, but yes, back to Paris,” Andy said as she hopped onto the cart and took the reins of the horse.

Nicholas sighed, “How long do you think this can go on? Will they continue to execute people until there are no aristocrats left? Or until the city itself is empty?” He climbed up into the cart with Joseph, dropping a hand onto his knee.

“They’re fighting for what they believe is right. For equality,” Joseph argued.

“But at what cost?”

Andy shrugged as she tapped the horse into motion, “Whatever the cost, they’ll pay it. People will pay for it with their lives and the lives of others. It’s not something we can decide for them. All are equal in death and those gates have been closed to us.”


End file.
